Power utility Eskom says that further improvements in generating capacity has allowed it to suspend load shedding for most of the day on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group said that load shedding would be suspended from midnight until 16h00 – then jumping back to stage 3 outages until Thursday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The current plan is for load shedding to continue at stage 1 – however, changes are likely to occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom has moved from setting a schedule for a few days in advance to providing daily updates with changes as they happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here is the current planned schedule:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wednesday, 20 September<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday, 21 September<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the improvements in outages this week, the power utility is unlikely to make much of a dent on the overall load shedding picture this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The country has already experienced the worst year of load shedding on record and is on its way to hitting another bleak milestone soon: by mid-October, we will have doubled the number of blackout hours seen in all of 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n South Africans have already spent an accumulated 61.5 full days of blackouts in 2023 so far, equivalent to 1,476 hours of darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This already far exceeds the levels of blackouts experienced in the whole of 2022 by some margin (34.6 days, or around 830 hours).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Load shedding in 2023 hit 2022\u2019s total back in May \u2013 but now the country is on track to double the 2022 record by mid-October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The full-year outlook is that the country will see 86.1 full days of blackouts (2,066 hours), equivalent to spending about a quarter of the year in the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, a 16-hour period with no power outages is a positive turn for the country, given its rarity in the bigger picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Load shedding on Sunday (16 September) afforded South Africa a full 18 hours of no load shedding \u2013 something South Africa had not seen since March 2023 when the country got a full-day suspension of outages on the public holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It took 180 days before South Africa could enjoy full power for 18 consecutive hours again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Schedules <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For people living in the major metros, load shedding schedules are available here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Smartphone users can also download the app EskomSePush to receive push notifications when load shedding is implemented, as well as the times the area you are in will be off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n\n\n\n